Within the field of media, the popularity of immersive virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality (collectively referred to hereinafter as “VR”) experiences is increasing. In recent years, the number of consumers with access to VR has exploded as affordably priced, consumer-targeted options have appeared in the global marketplace. One desirable avenue for VR is the creation of VR experiences directed to allowing users to engage with media content in a new and immersive way. For example, it is possible for users to watch or engage with audiovisual content, such as movies or video games, which appear as though projected on a massive theater screen inside of the virtual reality environment. To the user, it may appear convincing that the user is “inside” a movie theater—the virtual screen may be so big that the user will have to turn or tilt her head to catch a detail at the edge of the screen, for example.
While such experiences have been established and possible for consumers for years, challenges remain in providing the audiovisual content in a protected, digitally rights managed fashion. For example, with the theater-like possibilities of VR viewing experiences, it would be beneficial to offer premium, recently released films a user would normally have to go to a physical movie theater to experience. However, with such premium content in particular, it becomes crucial to avoid piracy and capturing of the audiovisual content for others to view. Even the possibility of a user taking off a VR headset to let another user watch the movie being displayed on the virtual screen presents possibilities for dissemination of the content outside of paying customers of the content.
Thus, there is a need in the field of digital content to create a new and useful system and method for providing digitally rights managed audiovisual content in a VR viewing experience. The source of the problem, as discovered by the inventors, is a lack of protected, trusted mechanisms for displaying audiovisual content without an application or VR device storing or being able to access the audiovisual content.